California Drought & El Niño.

The last few years high pressure has
dominated the western part of
the North Pacific.

It's official as I read yesterday . Our California drought is the worst in 500 years ! After four years of drought, California’s snowpack levels have already been declared the lowest since records began about a century ago. Now with new information gleaned from tree-ring data, scientists think that California’s snowpack is the lowest it’s been in over 500 years—and maybe even 1000. Who knows precisely ? Even if accurate , then again our state has had "winters" have been a oddball kind . The years between 2012 -2014 have been the warmest winters any native California's have seen . For Climate Changers they'll hit the panic button . In between those years that California was high and dry with mild -warm winters , the entire eastern part of the United States was hit with the "coldest" , blizzard like weather even seen. It';s sort of the flip side of the coin . So we here in California want warm water in out Pacific coast . (1)>>  HELL NO! The warm ocean water is the primary culprit to the California drought .The idea is that a massive column of warm water, 300 feet deep and 1,000 miles across, has been occupying more or less the same location in the Pacific Ocean for more than two years. The warm spot changes shape occasionally and has drifted closer to the West Coast, but its most dangerous feature is its ability to stubbornly dominate a large space.According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the problems started with the ocean-atmosphere interaction known as La Niña, which parked a high-pressure system just off of the West Coast in 2011. That high-pressure system had several effects. First, it rerouted storms that were heading toward the western United States, depriving California and the West of precipitation. It also changed the direction of the winds passing over the Pacific, diverting cold air that normally absorbs heat from

Equatorial Pacific Ocean temperature anomalies for
July in the Super El Niño years of 1982 & 1997
as compared to the same period in 2015.
Images adapted from NOAA's TAO Triton. 

the ocean. Hence, a warm ocean blob emerged. The reason: what appears to be a monster (2)>> El Niño in the making. The abnormally warm waters along the equator could mean a wet winter.There are no guarantees, but there have been portents. On one Saturday in July, San Diego got more rain than it got the entire month of January. Most of the "rainy" weather if any one meteorologist has paid any attention is below the "warm blob" that just sits off the coast of Bay Area Pacific Ocean . Warm water is no go to any weather , if the El Nino effect leaves the southern hemisphere moves slowly north of the equator  the weather changes drastically for South America . It has happened before in 2000 years, mostly laying waste to ancient Peruvian civilizations , The (3)>> Nazca and Moche peoples faced server droughts, and destructive weather conditions that basically wiped out those cultures within a 2000 year period. Cold water upwells to the surface at the equator to replace it. With El Niño the opposite occurs; the weakening or reversal of the trade winds means not only is heat transport out of the tropical surface ocean reduced, but so too is cold water upwelling at the equator. The weakened trade winds also allow the heat buried in deeper ocean layers in the west to surface and, as this bulge of warm water relaxes under the pull of gravity, to become smeared out across the Pacific. The temporary rise in sea surface temperature associated with these processes is why we now see mass bleaching episodes when El Niño arrives. 

Under Water Volcano's . A THEORY.

volcano, called Axial Seamount
(pictured), would erupt this year.
Near the Oregon coast . Coincidence?

You have all heard of the "warm water blob" that in the northern Pacific Ocean continues to grow and is having a profound effect upon marine animals from Mexico to Alaska, and may be altering weather across the continent.The crazy thing about it is that there has not been any serious scientific research on it . There have been many articles written about it .Nothing for me explains it more as to the cause of the warm water as originating ( or having to do with) underwater volcano's ?. This  mysterious blob  consists of  water that is roughly around 5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the typical ocean temperature. While that may not seem like much of a difference, the circular patch of warmth, which started as a small patch of water off the coast of Alaska, has grown to 500 miles across,and is the biggest and longest-lasting temperature anomaly in the historical record. Most Oceanic warm blobs are caused by active undersea (4)>> volcanoes. The area along the California, Oregon , Washington and Alaska coasts it know as the "ring of fire". Which great plate tectonics are at work . (5)>> Axial Seamount, an active underwater volcano located about 300 miles (482 km) off the coast of Oregon and Washington, appears to be erupting, says a news release from Oregon State University.The eruption confirms the prediction by two scientists that such an event would take place there in 2015.Instead, I surmise that Axial Seamount, along with untold numbers of other underwater volcanoes, has been heating the seas for quite some time. That could explain the record-breaking warmth – the so-called “warm blob” – in many parts of the Pacific Ocean right now. Underwater volcanoes appear to be on the increase, leading to an increasing amount of unusually warm water in the oceans. In past times this has resulted in mass extinctions during magnetic reversals and ice ages dating back to hundreds of millions of years.

California Fires . a weather changing phenomenon .

NASA color imagery from
the Aqua satellite
 showing widespread wildfires over Northern
California (remapped into Google Earth).

The (7)>> raging fires in California are no friend to the state. The soot and particles drift upward into the atmosphere creating a natural kind of (6)>>Contrail , which are clouds formed condenses and freezes around small particles (aerosols) that exist in aircraft exhaust. Some of that water vapor comes from the air around the plane; and, some is added by the exhaust of the aircraft. The exhaust of an aircraft contains both gas (vapor) and solid particles. These particles spread that at times cool the atmosphere. Conspiracy theorists  believe that this is part of a secret government attempt at weather modification . Smoke from these fires is nothing to laugh at . The particles can either cool the ground air by blocking sunlight / heat , or raise the temperature by trapping the solar energy like a green house . Just this week we all saw a temperature falling below normal , so a low pressure system moved in and brought the state some needed rain . None the less as of September 18, 2015 the weekend will soon be blanketed with abnormally high temperatures with triple digits inland . Perhaps as a result of the fire and smoke ? Particulate matter contributes to an unhealthy air , not as much as Carbon Dioxide , but its lethal  cousin Carbon Monoxide .For the year, more than 6 million acres -- an area the size of New Jersey -- have been burned, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. For the first time, the U.S. Forest Service will spend more than half its budget, some $1.2 billion, on fighting fires on the vast acreage it manages from the nation’s capital. With 190 million acres of land under its control, the Forest Service is ill-equipped to manage land to prevent fires or protect property once blazes break out, This is an ongoing problem w/ the feds. They are responsible for not allowing people to get rid of dead trees, brush, etc. They deserve a lot of the blame. Hopefully before long, the fires will be out for good, but what about the next fire? And the one after that? It’s illogical to assume that fires this bad won’t happen again and again. It’s not a question of if, but when, the next disastrous wildfire will strike California and other wildfire-prone areas. (Of course, California isn’t the only place contending with wildfires.) . It is no coincidence that forest fires began to get worse just about the same time the modern "environmental" movement came into being and were able to pretty much bring logging to a standstill. Certainly the drought is contributing to this seasons fires in much of Northern California and the NorthWest, but the numbers and intensity of fires were increasing before the drought even came on. Drought can certainly exacerbate fire conditions, but ultimately it is over forestation (fuel loading) that lies at the root cause of the situation. It is no coincidence that the drought in California coincides with severe cooling of most of North American continent landmasses to the East.Many are finally beginning to wake up to the fact that the something is very wrong with the weather. Many are finally realizing something profound is happening in our skies. Some are now finally making the decision to get involved with the fight to raise awareness of the lethal climate engineering programs, but are we already too late? The reason our forest burn hotter and with more devastating consequences is because of the mismanagement of our public lands.  This began with fire suppression and logging. If it's not "climate change/ global warming " as the cause of the California fires and dry weather . The leading cause of it might be California's liberal government doing it's best at mismanagement .

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

In 1976, climatologists said that that global
 cooling caused drought
 and fires in
California,
and produced catastrophic
erratic weather globally.

(1)>>Tropical meteorologist Dr. Phil Klotzbach said August 2015 monthly sea-surface temperature anomalies in that strip of Pacific water nudged slightly ahead of 1997 for warmest in the modern era. "The atmospheric response to the equatorial sea-surface temperature anomalies, measured by their atmospheric ENSO index (AEI), is the strongest event since at least 1948," said Dr. Todd Crawford, chief meteorologist at WSI, the professional division of The Weather Company, in aSeptember-November seasonal outlook. (2)>>The fact that El Niño is likely to last into spring is important for the United States since precipitation and temperature impacts from a moderate-to-strong El Niño are typically most noticeable during the colder months, from late fall through winter.This so called  powerful El Niño now forming, combined with the ongoing ocean warming, suggests that we are likely to see a mass coral bleaching episode that approaches, or exceeds, the worldwide bleaching that came with the Super El Niño years of 1982/1983 and 1997/1998. The 1997/1998 Super El Niño saw 16% of the world's coral bleach, the largest die-off ever observed, and some of this coral has never recovered. (3)>> The Nazca and Moche . El Nino's in South America are not good weather , HISTORICALLY . The Moche civilization ended with a famine caused by El Niño. El Niño causes extreme weather such as floods, droughts and disturbances that affect agriculture and fishing. There are several theories as to what caused the demise of the Moche political structure. Some scholars have emphasised the role of environmental change. Studies of ice cores drilled from glaciers in the Andes reveal climatic events between 536 to 594 AD, possibly a super El Niño, that resulted in 30 years of intense rain and flooding followed by 30 years of drought, part of the aftermath of the climate changes of 535–536. These weather events could have disrupted the Moche way of life and shattered their faith in their religion, which had promised stable weather through sacrifices. (4)>>The volcanic string comes ashore in Calif as Mt. Shasta and Mt. Lassen most East. To the west, the fault separates Pt. Reyes from the rest of N.America then continues south through Silicon Valley Mountains to Los Angeles.The subduction volcanoes are a bit inland with Calistoga as a hot springs. The discontinuity shifts over to the Mono Lake area (with honorable mention for the Sutter Buttes last active about 6 millon years ago and Mt. Diablo too). From Mono, the volcanoes make a line down to the Salton Sea (near L.a. last eruption about 9000 years back) then follow the Gulf of California with active volcanoes to the end…(5)>> The seafloor has also reportedly dropped by almost 8ft (2.4 metres), additionally said to be a sign of magma being withdrawn from a reservoir beneath the summit.It is dubbed Axial Seamount due its location along the axis of an underwater mountain ridge.We just don't know enough about undersea volcanos and volcanic eruptions, for instance just how many are erupting right now, and what impact is this having on heating the seas thus contributing to normal climate change (or evolution which is better way to

look at it). (6)>>Contrail. In 1999, environmental journalist William Thomas published an article that popularized the idea of chemtrails, toxic clouds that the Air Force was testing to control the weather for geoengineering. He based some of his ideas on the Air Force paper, but also on a patent filed in 1991 for a "Stratospheric Welsbach Seeding for reduction of global warming." That patent was related to research into the idea that seeding the upper atmosphere with reflective particles might slow global warming by reflecting sunlight back into space. So Thomas work steered the chemtrail conspiracy away from weather control for combat, and into weather control for combatting global warming.(7)>> The worsening of California wildfires was predicted a while back and has more to do with past practices of firefighting there than anything else. For a long time, they would put out every fire as fast as possible, eliminating even natural rates of forest-clearing by lightning and such. This led to well-documented overly dense growth which has exacerbated wildfires for years, creating an increasing trend in their extent. In a drought year, this leads to record fires.

Syria, Russia and Kerry.

The Syrian crisis , and the obvious arming of the "so call democracy rebels" by the United States in my mind created the Islamic State of Levant . (***)>> The American foreign  policy was for the complete overthrow of the Assad government.  In some ways I am ashamed that my own country has engaged in such a disastrous conduct by advocating the overthrowing of foreign  governments. This is how hard working Americans are seeing their tax dollars spent . Yes , shipping arms to Syrian Terrorist mislabeled as "freedom fighters" . The news right now reports that Russia has entered the game , now they are sending arms , troops and advisers to try to help the Assad government fight the rebels , and the Islamic State . PERSONALLY I said ' Thank Your Mr. Putin". (1)>>  Russia is doing EXACTLY what America should have done in the first place . It should have supported Assad against the Syrian rebels who are linked to  al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, al-Nusra front . All of our American leadership has done is double dealing and treachery . Selling weapons to rebels who intern are allied with ISIL , who are shooting and killing with American made weapons . What a despicable viscous circle  With the new "Obama induced" cold war of words with Russia (3)>> John Kerry warned Russia not in get involved.Now YOU  with intelligent scruples are scratching your heads on this one? How can we tell Russia to back off Syria when our illustrious hypocritical American government has been  involved in  (5)>> Syria by destabilizing that nation to such a point that now we have all these (2)>> refugees fleeing ? It's sicking . BUT those are HARD the facts . Americans WAKE UP!As Americans we are just getting our media (4)>>  induced explanations to this crisis.US Secretary of State John Kerry has expressed his concern over reports of Russian military activities in Syria, (oh ho ) warning that it could fan more violence, ( what about our American involvement ?)  a state department spokesman said.Spokesman John Kirby told reporters in the US on Wednesday that Kerry made clear in a phone call to Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that if the reports were true "it could lead to greater violence and are not helpful at all" to efforts by the international community to end the conflict. Currently after two news broadcasts from some of the big networks are popularizing a false notion on American minds that its because of " Russian involvement" . The west has to point the finger and blame someone else .US questions Russia over moves in Syria, who questioned US about their moves in these so called Muslim countries? The west funds one rebel group after the other and then use them as a cause to invade, they did that in Afghanistan, Iraq.The arming of Syrian rebels by the west lead to the the creation of IS. Their interference in Iraq, Syria, Libya only brought only disasters, these countries were in more better state before the west made its "move". And by the way, Russia doesn't cares about US warning. Putin is planning to focus on the fight against “terrorism” in his speech later this month at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Russia will also host a ministerial-level meeting on the sidelines about fighting extremism, which it defines as including all the groups fighting the Assad regime, including the U.S.-backed rebels.

Show me the legality of the war in Syria. Syria is an independent and Sovereign country, under what authority of the U.S? 

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

(1)>> The Russians have a naval base, the Americans would have done the same to "protect their interests". If the west is seeking a political solution why are they and their pals still doing bombing raids? Who are they negotiating with? America would have had the upper hand against IS had it supported Assad , but obviously President Obama had to draw a "red line" with Assad , and side with the rebels.(2)>> refugees.  Russia is doing this at the behest of the EU and the US although they may say otherwise in the media, the exchange will soon be the quiet easing of sanctions on Russia and also a "blind eye" policy to what happens in Ukraine. WHY? because the US and NATO has failed to contain this problem and it has now arrived on their shores in a shock wave of refugees, refugees that will cost them dearly financially and refugees that could be a security threat in their countries but mostly, refugees they can't turn away.It makes extremely good sense to allow the Russians a free hand to literally wipe out every armed faction and be left with only Assad. Sadly this does say one thing very clearly, the US and the EU are more worried about themselves than the Syrian or Ukrainian people.(3)>> John Kerry. The US secretary of state appeared to say on CBS News that America has to negotiate with Syria’s president about a political transition in the war-torn country. But later the State Department clarified that John Kerry wasn’t referring to Bashar Assad. "But to get the Assad regime to negotiate, we're going to have to make it clear to him that there is a determination by everybody to seek that political outcome and change his calculation about negotiating,” Kerry said on Sunday. Kerry was speaking on the fourth anniversary of the start of the civil war in Syria, which started as peaceful protests against the Assad government, but descended into violence claiming more than 210,000 lives. The US has been supporting the Syrian rebels, who insist that the Syrian president should be ousted. In January, Russia and the US organized the Geneva-2 peace talks between Assad’s government and the Syrian opposition. However, after two rounds of negotiations, no agreement was reached. This April, Moscow is set to host a meeting between the two sides of the conflict.(4)>> The Propaganda in the USA . According to certain elements of the US media, Russian soldiers are everywhere. At this stage, the moon is probably the only place you are safe. Then again, maybe they are readying copy which 'proves' that the Russians are hiding on the dark side. Or perhaps even they believe that such an accusation would be a bridge too far.Russian military personnel have always been in Syria. Moscow has a base there. Furthermore, Vladimir Putin has hardly hidden the fact that his government has fulfilled defense contracts with Damascus. That would require trainers on the ground. (5)>>The “destabilizing” remark can’t pass without comment. The US has trained and armed foreign militants in a bid to overthrow Syria’s government. It is currently illegally bombing the country. Of course, this helps to fuel the migrant crisis in the EU. (***)>>  No. the USA's war on terror is what has made America less safe. Additionally, continuously poking a bear in the eye also makes one less safe. I will suggest that it is the USA's foreign policy that makes American's less safe. Sadly, America will reap what it has sown. You sow corruption you reap corruption.

The American Law-enforcement

The American Law-enforcement is under siege . Wicomico County Sheriff Mike Lewis said today on“America’s FOX News Headquarters” that police badges have become targets. Lewis remarked that the overwhelming majority of Americans support law enforcement, but he said part of society hates police officers. He also charged Black Lives Matter with perpetuating violence . It is merely that police departments have been discomfited by the fact that Black Lives Matter and other movements have picked up momentum in the wake of the shootings of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Sam DuBose, Walter Scott, James Boyd and others  (1)>>“We’ve got police officers right now who are hesitating to do their jobs and hesitating to use deadly force, and when you hesitate, you die,” he said. “There are cemeteries across this country that are full of great cops who hesitated to pull that trigger and died.” Rolling Stone magazine last December put out an interesting article which I will quote here :

"Law-enforcement resources are now distributed so unevenly, and justice is being administered with such brazen inconsistency, that people everywhere are going to start questioning the basic political authority of law enforcement. And they're mostly going to be right to do it, and when they do, it's going to create problems that will make the post-Ferguson unrest seem minor."

FEW doubt that there is something seriously wrong with policing in America. Far too many people, chiefly young black men, are dying at the hands of police. Every new police scandal invites more hand-wringing over a law-enforcement system that often seems racist and unjust. Yet few also doubt that most police officers are decent people who “risk their own safety for ours every single day,” as President Barack Obama put it recently.While newly available data show that law enforcement deaths did rise from 2013 to 2014, a closer analysis shows that 2013 may have been the aberration, with an unusually low number of police deaths, while 2014 marked a return to the recent norm. law enforcement officers throughout the country say they feel under siege after a string of deadly attacks on police. This distrust of police, coming in the wake of controversial deaths by officers in Ferguson, Missouri, and elsewhere, helps fuel the bloodshed, they say. But there's no evidence of the so-called Ferguson effect -- that police are hesitating to do their jobs -- or that criminals are being emboldened by the rhetoric. They're not doing their jobs any differently. The job is harder in the last year, but they aren't just lying down. The growing fear factor might be the case between the civilian and the law, "Black Lives Matter" became a rallying cry of protesters around the country last year after a white police officer in Ferguson killed unarmed black teen Michael Brown, and a black man named Eric Garner died from an apparent chokehold by a white New York police officer. The Texas officer Cpl. Wayne Curry , like anyone who wears a badge, said he has had his share of run-ins with those who harbor a dislike of the police. But when people have stepped up to him, he said, it is "more likely they want to buy me dinner." The killing was the latest in a spate of deadly attacks in which police officers have been the targets. Last week, two Louisiana officers were killed in separate incidents and two officers in Mississippi died in May when they came under fire during a traffic stop. At least 25 police killings in New York, Pennsylvania, San Jose and elsewhere have rattled police already this year. The federal government exercises a limited role in overseeing police departments. In the wake of a scandal involving police corruption or violence in a major city, the DOJ's Civil Rights Division may launch investigations for "patterns and practices" that violate the civil rights of residents, as it has in Baltimore. But the decentralized nature of law enforcement in the US means that in most cases police reform will have to be implemented at the state and local level. Building trust between law enforcement agencies and the people they serve has long been a priority for police leaders. Recently, heightened awareness of incidents of gross police misconduct, often amplified by new technologies, has helped lead to the creation of The President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing, led by Commissioner Charles Ramsey and Laurie Robinson, which has provided a roadmap for law enforcement agencies to self-assess and begin focusing on areas where they have opportunities to improve on their service delivery and increase their legitimacy. Every justified use of force begins as an offense against the officer, whether resisting or assault. Stop dropping charges where police are crime victims. Stop writing checks to every arrestee who says “boo!” Let us sue bad guys. Give us police leaders and prosecutors who know that a crime against the police is a crime against everyone’s peace and dignity. We really do carry the badge on your behalf. 

NOTES AND COMMENTS:
 (1)>> Police Officers . Yes there are good officers , but some I wonder .Many police officers seem to have this "Us against the world attitude". And, every one  that  has shot unarmed civilians seems to have a number of guns at home. Is that the Siege Mentality? They've been militarized and trained to think like that.Obviously The Times is right that the police are now facing a new foe, the public. But what is missing in this article is the root of this animosity. To me it's a no-brainer. ("Police worry about their own safety after killings: 'It's a different world,'" Aug. 31)

Crisis in Syria is really America's problem .

A Turkish gendarme prepared to carry the body of
Aylan Kurdi, 3, who drowned off
Turkey's
coast on Wednesday

The Crisis in Syria is really America's problem Why I blame my country . You have to connect the dots .... (1)>> Our Obama administration created the worst crisis in the middle-east . First You CAN blame George D Bush for invading Iraq . Our American prescience has made a disgusting shit pile in the Syria , and Iraq . It fueled the creation of the terrorist Islamic State . When I saw images of the drowned refugees this week I almost threw up. Just thinking that my country is behind one of the worst scenarios ever seen . Yet Washington D.C. is playing "hear no evil and see no evil ." Not a single peep From President Obama , or the State  Department .Stirring outrage that European nations aren't doing more to help those making perilous journeys in the hope of a better life on the continent. An uncomfortable truth, however, is that this isn't just a problem for Europe. It's a global problem, one in which the United States is involved,Neocons and the mainstream U.S. media place all the blame for the Syrian civil war on President Bashar al-Assad and Iran, but there is another side of the story in which Syria’s olive branches to the U.S. and Israel were spurned and a reckless drive for “regime change” have failed . American policy in the whole Middle-East is nothing but a sin . But almost from the start, Assad was marked by the George W. Bush administration for “regime change.” Then, in the early years of Barack Obama’s presidency, there were some attempts at diplomatic engagement, but shortly after a civil conflict broke out in 2011, the legacy of official U.S. hostility toward Syria set in motion Washington’s disastrous confrontation with Assad which continues to this day. Innocent Syrians are being killed in a American created civil War . I think many Americans should be outraged at this . Why no one here in America knows? Perhaps nobody else is getting the message .The U.S., Western Europe, and their regional allies in fact bear most of the responsibility for the rise of extremist groups like ISIL ( Islamic State). The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, which Britain notably supported, was a strategic disaster. Contrary to speculation at the time, Saddam Hussein’s secular Ba’athist regime prevented Al Qaeda from operating out of Iraq. Iraq had also been supported by the West before the 1991 Gulf War as a counterbalance against the revolutionary Islamic Republic during the Iran-Iraq War. The U.S.-led invasion changed all of that. Everything is going to hell and a hand basket . Soon I think it's going to get worse , and I can just see American troops on the ground again . Perhaps Russia will get involved as a American alley . Some form of humanitarian aide has to flow.  It's going to take a while for this to happen , but many nations have to clean up the mess our American leaders have made . All these refugees coming into Europe and America  mirrors the Bosnian Crisis of 1994 , which former President Bill Clinton miscalculated , but led to a flurry of a mass immigration to the United States. Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie on Thursday tied the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Syrians to  (2)>>President Barack Obama, alleging his inaction contributed to the crisis gripping Syria and its refugees flooding Europe. He is right . "This President has allowed these folks to be slaughtered," Christie said during a campaign stop Thursday in New Hampshire. "I frankly can't imagine as president of the United States how you could permit this to happen on this scale, and now we're seeing those results. And it's much different when you read about it, and when you see it -- it becomes even more powerful." Now American tax payers must ready to pay for thousands , may be hundreds of thousands of refugees.  At the same time, some lawmakers on Capitol Hill are warning that loosening immigration rules to take them in would pose a serious security risk. For the Obama administration – and the one that succeeds it – there are no easy answers. To be sure, many of the millions fleeing civil war and terror come from countries with a strong Islamic State presence, and lawmakers have warned that applicants must be properly vetted for terror ties. (3)>> We can see the reverse situation, where the government decides to take care of the refugees at the expense of the welfare of its own citizens. The US, certain EU countries, Israel, the Saudis, and the Israel Lobby and their advocacy for war in the Middle East were responsible for this crisis.And if the United States has a hand in creating or prolonging these conflicts ( and we certainly do) then we have a moral obligation to take in some of the displaced. How ever now it's more costly in human terms.

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

(1)>>The U.S.’s own involvement in the Syrian conflict is telling. Early in the civil war, the Obama administration expressed its conviction that Bashar al-Assad’s regime had to go. Given U.S. antagonism toward Iran and its allies, this statement did not come as a surprise. The U.S. offered nonlethal aid to the Syrian rebels and eventually covertly armed them, going so far as to operate a training camp for rebels in northern Jordan. The Syrian rebels mutated to the Islamic State and swore alliance to Al Qaeda. While there is no account how many American weapons were shipped to aide the Syrian rebels , a vast majority of the aide went into the hands of the enemy .  But the U.S. didn’t appear to expand its direct support for the Syrian rebels beyond this point, and for good reason. When the Obama administration asked Congress for $500 million to train and equip “moderate rebels,” the Pentagon testified that it anticipated difficulties finding moderate fighters to train and arm. In plain English, this means that they don’t really exist. With IS’s victories in Iraq, the U.S. strategy of fueling the fire in Syria without allowing either side to win is finally revealing its inherent contradictions. This perhaps triggered a Civil War in Syria . (2)>>Barack Obama has said comparatively little about the refugee crisis as opposed to the US-led war against the extremist group Isis, a campaign to which he devoted a national address last year. Asked on Thursday about US plans to take in more refugees, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said there are no “impending policy changes” and that the US will continue to offer aid to Europe. (3)>> We could be paying for a new wave of immigration .  Amnesty International recently pointed out, the "six Gulf countries -- Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain -- have offered zero resettlement places to Syrian refugees. In late spring, with the war in Syria grinding into its fifth year amid an ever-deepening humanitarian catastrophe for millions of refugees, 14 United States senators wrote a letter to President Obama urging that at least 65,000 of the displaced Syrians be allowed to resettle in the United States.

BIGOTRY & Idiocy REVISITED : Kim Davis .

Kim Davis , her religious convictions
may have crossed the line in
Church State Separation .

Kim Davis, the Rowan County clerk who made headlines this week by refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples has been taken into custody by U.S. marshals and will be spending time in jail for her defiance of the law of the land. “The court cannot condone the willful disobedience of its lawfully issued order…If you give people the opportunity to choose which orders they follow, that’s what potentially causes problems” wrote Judge David L. Bunning of the U.S. Federal District Court. Taking a cue from previous incidents, Bunning felt that fines were not “motivation enough,” as they could be easily paid by supporters. She will remain in jail until she agrees to grant the licenses. Being a publicly elected servant, she may not be fired, only impeached.What the Constitution’s First Amendment does say is that government shall make no law “respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” It is well to attend to the actual words of the Constitution (an admirable obsession of some Tea Party folks ), but does it defend "bigotry"? I believe the Clerk crossed the line while working for the federal government when she "invoked God" on the basses to "discriminate" . Why I say this ?  Yea, I know that the Bible says regarding (1)>>  Homosexuality , and  I am presuming that the Clerk's religious beliefs were strong Davis was not pleased with the result. “I never imagined a day like this would come, where I would be asked to violate a central teaching of Scripture and of Jesus himself regarding marriage. To issue a marriage license which conflicts with God’s definition of marriage, with my name affixed to the certificate, would violate my conscience. It is not a light issue for me. It is a heaven or hell decision.”. My point is she would have served God better if she just kept her mouth shut . People like this piss me off ,because they give the Christian religion a bad name . Much like the Islamic State which is making Muslim's look like crap in the eyes of the world . (2)>>The current Right Wing THINKING is that "They’re taking rights away from Christians.” But bigotry is not a right, nor is it freedom of religion. Ms. Davis is free to marry whom she chooses (and has, repeatedly - all her prerogative) but not to deny others' liberty. She should  have deferred all gay applicants to another clerk or manager. In stead making a spectacle of a situation . Ms. Davis, please just do the job you were elected to do. They’re going to get married whether you like it or not. Don’t make this harder than it has to be. But Ms. Davis proved herself a good hypocrite ,  A transgender man and his wife stepped forward Saturday with paperwork showing that Kentucky Clerk Kim Davis apparently issued them a marriage license in February even though she has blocked forms for same-sex couples over the past two months. "This is not about religion. If it were about a religion, then the clerks would refuse to marry people who had once been divorced. Jesus was very clear about that one," the Harvard Law professor emeritus said Friday to J.D. Hayworth . Davis, who has been married four times and has two children out-of wedlock, says she's an Apostolic Christian simply exercising her religious rights in her belief that "marriage is a union between one man and one woman." This is all about bigotry , and idiocy revisited  .


Added opinion .

In writing this I am not trying to be least nonsensitive to this issue , personally the Judge sending Ms. Kim to Jail may have been heavy handed .

NOTES AND COMMENTS :

(1)>>Homosexuality can't be reconciled if you look at the Bible . Yes the bible places it as a SIN altogether . We've all heard that Leviticus is where the Bible straight-up says that homosexual behavior is an abomination. And yes, it does. It also says that homosexuals should receive the death penalty (!!!). (Leviticus 18:22) (Leviticus 20:13) There is no escaping what the Bible says . The reason behind such a harsh condemnation is mostly to do with the Patriarchal system where Men were supposed to "use women as reproduce for the tribe " .  Two of the same sex can't make babies , but the Jewish Rabbi's .וְאֶת-זָכָר, לֹא תִשְׁכַּב מִשְׁכְּבֵי אִשָּׁה — תּוֹעֵבָה הִוא Lev. 20:13 "And if a man lie with mankind, as with womankind, both of them have committed a detestable act: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them." Much of the bad press against ancient homosexuality is based that many of the so called practices were closest related to Canaanite temple prostitution which involve male and female prostitutes . The New Testament has no words from Jesus himself , though Jesus himself seems to have believed in " Marriage  is between a Man and a Woman ".4 And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made[a] them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’[b] 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?[c] 6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” Matthew 19 :9. So the Bible says . Yet the Bible makes no mention of same sex marriage . (2)>>Leading the brigade of Kim Davis’ righteous GOP disciples,former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee calls Davis’ arrest the “criminalization of Christianity in our country”. Mr. Huckabee seems to be confused, since Davis was arrested for contempt of court, not for her religious practices. Or perhaps he simply believes that Christians should be exempt from having to comply with secular laws. In any case, Huckabee plans to visit Davis in jail on Tuesday. He is also hosting a demonstration outside the jailhouse, where Davis’ supporters can gather to demand her release.

American Income inequality more " Dangerous" than all the world threats.

The most  (1)>>DANGEROUS threat to the United States as a whole is not Russia , the Islamic State , or even Iran . When one views poverty and income inequality they are more pervasive  is erosion from with our nation. They should be viewed as a threat .Income disparity is the root cause of many social evils. Something needs to be done to address this issue. The American economy has not worked for the average family since the end of (2)>> the Clinton administration. Adjusted for

inflation, median earnings of men working full-time year-round are where they were in 1980. That’s unfair because productivity has been rising for two decades but the benefit has been confined to the already well-off. Today, income inequality in the U.S. exceeds any other democracy in the developed world. Two-thirds of American families earning less than $30,000 a year are often in crisis mode when the bills come in, but the misery is conspicuously not shared. In 1944 the top 1 percent earned 11 percent of all income. By 2012, it was 23 percent of the nation’s income. The mismatch between reward and effort makes a mockery of the American dream.According to Pew Research, most Americans believe the economic system unfairly favors the wealthy, but 60% believe that most people can make it if they’re willing to work hard. Senator Marco Rubio says that America has “never been a nation of haves and have-nots. We are a nation of haves and soon-to-haves, of people who have made it and people who will make it.” Sure, we love a good rags-to-riches story, but perhaps we tolerate such inequality because we think these stories happen more than they actually do.

There are few "rags to riches" stories .This is a well established trend. During the last recession, wealthy people were in a position to take advantage of the downturn, for example, buying enormous amounts of real estate at rock bottom prices. They can afford to sit on the properties until the market recovers and then make a tremendous profit.Some of the middle class and poor on the other hand lose their jobs and go through their life savings, if they have any, so that when the recovery happens, they spend the rest of their working lives trying to regain houses, cars and rebuild savings and retirement. The poor end up renting the houses they once owned from the rich. The rich are simply doing what anyone with good management skills would do. This cycle happens over and over and the "rich get richer and the poor get poorer". It's almost inevitable. The Great Bush era Recession from 2007 to 2009 seems to have initiated an era of 2 percent annual growth, well below our historical average. Even prolonged low interest rates have not enticed a new consumer credit cycle. Nor have capital gains in the hands of the wealthy generated meaningful growth in spending. Though productivity has outpaced wages, it has not been that great. Right now the predictions are that productivity will stay in the low range of around 1.6 percent annual growth, even with the explosion of the digital world . The number of people living in concentrated poverty has grown staggeringly since 2000, nearly doubling from 7.2 million in 2000 to 13.8 million people by 2013—the highest figure ever recorded. This is a troubling reversal of previous trends, particularly of the previous decade of 1990 to 2000, where  (3)>>Jargowsky’s own research found that concentrated poverty declined. Now the public has moved beyond the plaintive cry of “feel our pain” to the more angry pronouncement of “you are causing our pain,” as one commentator put it. The pessimism is not confined to the poorest. It is shared by many in the middle-income range. The couple who graduate from high-school to earn college degrees can expect to see their income jump by approximately $58,000 per year, but hourly real wages have stalled even for college-educated Americans, and it is only those with advanced degrees who are seeing gains. Today, domestically, income inequality is the most important issue of our generation. And the only way the gap in income inequality will lesson is if corporations place people over profits. Some criticize the President for being too professorial; for leading from behind; for not being able to work with others in Congress - whatever you think of Mr. Obama - as a patriot you have to respect the office and concede there is only so much one man or woman could do in that office -- and with a Congress that's more dysfunctional than ever- with Washington D.C. more ruled by special interest groups than ever -and with a country more uneducated and turned off to politics than ever - it's harder than ever to put faith in our elected leaders. 

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

(1). Poverty is more Dangerous than all world enemies America could have . Its a slow creeping erosion of our Democratic values. More than 45 million people, or 14.5 percent of all Americans, lived below the poverty line last year, the Census Bureau reported on Tuesday. The percentage of Americans in poverty fell from 15 percent in 2012, the biggest such decline since the year 2000. But the level of poverty is still higher than 12.3 percent in 2006, before the recession began. (2)>>Inequality in the US has absolutely exploded since we started down this path of implementing trickle down economics in 1980- http://politicsthatwork.com/blog/inequality.php You can see at that URL what your income would be if we still had even the same- already highly unequal- distribution of income as we did even just in 1980.Then one day (in the early 1980s) things began to change rapidly in this exceptional country. The promise of a dream slowly began to fade away into a fantasy as those who rose to the top decided they liked the view and space was limited and sharing the view wasn't so ideal really.(3)>> The  new Century Foundation study from Paul Jargowsky, director of the Center for Urban Research and Urban Education at Rutgers University, reveals the devastating growth of geographically concentrated poverty and its connection to race across America. To get at this, Jargowsky used detailed data on more than 70,000 Census tracts from the American Community Survey and the decennial Census to track the change in concentrated poverty between 1990 and 2013. Concentrated poverty is defined as neighborhoods or tracts where 40 percent or more of residents fall below the federal poverty threshold (currently $24,000 for a family of four). The study looks at this change across the nation as a whole and within its major metropolitan areas.